Uncomfortably Numb

Has it really been more than 5 years since Newtown? Little Noah Pozner, maybe he'd be... still in Sandy Hook Elementary School, along with his classmates. Maybe he'd be starting to dream about his bar mitzvah.

A crazy 20-year old former student with 4 semi-automatic weapons came in to the school one December day, and in less than 5 minutes unloaded more than 150 shots to ensure that dreams would not come true. Noah was shot 11 times, the shots literally blowing off his jaw and a hand.

The governor cried. The president cried. He begged for congressional action to create laws that might at least reduce the risk. At a vigil shortly after the massacre, he said, "Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?"

So here we are. Five years later.

I start typing in the search window... "how many s"
The 2nd suggested response is "how many school shootings 2018."

According to this New York Times article, there have been 239 school shootings since Sandy Hook. 438 people shot, and 138 deaths.

Of course, it's not just schools. Since Sandy Hook, mass shootings causing at least 14 deaths have also occurred at a a holiday party, a church, a nightclub, and a concert. Any place, it seems, where people gather. These massacres were all committed by people with "semi-automatic" weapons such as the AR-15.

I like to believe that I live in the greatest country on earth. Yet my country's government can't be bothered to enact laws that would protect the lives of its citizens.

Five years ago, I'd have a brief fit of nerves every day when I dropped my kids off for school.

Today, we have one child in college, and one in high school. What would protect them? The high school has a security guard, a genial fellow who politely asks visitors to sign in. I have never confirmed this, but I assume he is unarmed. The high school also has many doors. Our good guy, with or without a gun, would be no match for an assault. Nor would it help to arm our teachers; never mind that most have no interest in bearing arms in the classroom. It's numbing. I don't get nervous any more. It's the new normal: at high school, it's drop them off, and trust they'll be safe at the end of the day.

On the fifth anniversary of Newton, the current President of the United States made no commemoration, though he did have time to host the leader of the NRA. In a statement after the massacre in Parkland, Florida, he talked about mental health but made no mention of how horribly easy it to legally acquire the weapons of human destruction.

NBA Basketball coach Steve Kerr, whose father was an American diplomat who was murdered in the line of duty, put it best: "It doesn't seem to matter to our government that children are being shot to death day after day in schools... But we can do something about it. We can vote people in who actually have the courage to protect people's lives and not just bow down to the NRA..."